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Monthly Archives: August 2017

The Chiefs running back is expected to miss the entire regular season after being diagnosed with a torn PCL in addition to damage to the LCL in his right knee, team trainer Rick Burkholder revealed Sunday.

But that’s exactly what ESPN tried to get Thomas to do in an upcoming E:60 episode. In a teaser, the network aired a clip where they asked Thomas to name all 18 starting quarterbacks he’s protected since joining the franchise in 2007.

There are even more quarterbacks he’s blocked for that didn’t start, but let’s not make this too difficult.

The good thing is even Thomas is able to laugh about the ridiculousness of the situation he’s been in for so long. In his 10 years with the team, the Browns have gone 48-112 with their 18 starting quarterbacks.

Even better, the list isn’t done growing. Brock Osweiler and DeShone Kizer both have strong chances to start at some point this season.

Despite Allen missing 19 games in the two years prior to free agency, the Texans signed him to a lucrative contract worth $7 million a year. Allen was never really a full-time starter prior to this contract, and it should have been no surprise when he missed two games and failed to live up to his salary last season.

The Titans’ contract with Ryan looks to be a classic example of a team overpaying a good — but not great — player. Most were surprised when Ryan was able to blow past the second-tier cornerback market with this $10 million-per-year contract. The normally low-spending Titans must have extremely high expectations for him to have made this investment.

Milos Teodosic has agreed to a two-year deal with the Clippers, per Adrian Wojnarowski. Here’s what L.A. is getting with him:

The Clippers signed Milos Teodosic for two years. If your attention to basketball begins and ends in the NBA, you may be wondering who that is. Here’s who that is!

Collison comes to Indiana as a replacement for starting point guard Jeff Teague, who signed a three-year, $57 million deal to join the Minnesota Timberwolves. He joins a team shifting towards a youth movement after moving on from Paul George this summer.Authentic Kids Mark Scheifele Jersey
Indiana traded George to the Thunder for Victor Oladipo and second year stretch-4 Domantas Sabonis. The trade was done to bring two young talents to Indiana as the team begins to build around dynamic center Myles Turner.

Authentic Kids Darius Slay Jersey If you don’t remember, the banana boat tradition started back in 2015, when Gabrielle Union, Dwyane Wade, Chris Paul and LeBron James spent their day riding around the high seas on, yes, a banana boat.

But this summer? Nothing but sadness. LeBron is busy being angry and working out, Chris Paul is adjusting to his new life as James Harden’s partner-in-crime and Melo is, like, just chilling in New York. And that leaves the Wade family relaxing by themselves, empty banana boat in tow.

But hey, there’s always next summer! Maybe 2018 is the year the Banana Boat Crew can finally get back together, riding their banana boat into the sunset.

That was the same logic that convinced Ainge to trade the No. 1 pick for future assets, that stopped a chance to acquire DeMarcus Cousins, that made Jimmy Butler seem like a problematic option. The possibilities for the future looked far nicer to Ainge than the reality of the present.

Houston will need to find assets from somewhere else to sweeten an Anderson deal and make his contract digestible for the receiving team. The best it can offer is a 2020 first-round pick, and that won’t likely be enough.

Limited Womens Pernell McPhee Jersey Trading Anderson isn’t the only way to acquire Anthony, but the alternative would likely mean losing Eric Gordon and Trevor Ariza, who the Rockets need to compete next season. (Houston has a collection of non-guaranteed contracts to include in a trade as well, but they add up to less than $10 million.)

Thus, Houston is backed into a tight corner here, relying on other teams to come through with the draft picks and young assets necessary to convince everyone involved.

The Phoenix Suns appear to be a team that would make sense. Since pulling out of a Paul Millsap offer, it’s obvious they’re in rebuild mode, and Woj has reported their interest in a salary dump for picks.

Youth Xavier Grimble Jersey The claim that Leonard is simply a good player is far beyond an antiquated take. He’s a Finals MVP, two-time Defensive Player of the Year winner, two-time All-Star, and was one of the lead vote-getters for MVP award last season. That’s way better than good — that’s great.

Hardaway knows that. But he wasn’t talking about basketball when he made that statement. He was talking about something else, and he does have a point.

Leonard is one of the best four or five players in the league in any given year and will be a fixture the league’s MVP conversation for the foreseeable future. But in the world of public opinion, he’s still not marketed as one of the NBA’s faces. That’s by design, but it’s also what Hardaway was getting at.

This is the eighth of Limited Upside’s 30 team previews leading up to next season. We’re bringing together representatives from all 30 SB Nation team sites and other team-specific experts from the SB Nation/Limited Upside community to gauge the temperature of the fan base heading into the season. Check ’em all out here.Elite Kids Doug Baldwin Jersey
The Mavericks have quietly embraced an on-the-fly youth movement and are in a position where expectations are relatively low. That’s a new world for Mavs fans, and they’re embracing it.

In the state of California, it now costs upward of $75,000 per year to house one prisoner. Taking into account that many taxpayers do not earn that much per year, but are stuck with the bill to keep a roof over prisoners’ heads, food in the their bellies, gym equipment in their workout areas and televisions in their recreation rooms, it doesn’t seem fair, does it?

Put another way, according to the Los Angeles Times, it costs $2,000 more per year to house a prisoner in California than it does to pay for tuition, fees, room and board, and other expenses at Harvard University for one year! Additionally, the most recent state budget allotted the corrections department $11.4 billion, even though the number of inmates has fallen due to early-release programs to ease prison overcrowding. This exorbitant budget begs the question: where is the money going?

Ricky Wagner Authentic Jersey By contrast, teachers in the U.S., on average, spend $500 of their own money to stock their classrooms with supplies — which totals about $1.6 billion annually. Common sense tells us that better-funded schools will lead students down a path of success. They will be college-ready or prepared to enter the workforce because of having learned a trade in high school. With possibilities for further education or future employment, young people most definitely would be more inclined to resist the wrong roads that lead to incarceration.

Before we get too deep into this, I’m aware of how good Jose Altuve is. He will probably win the MVP. He’ll probably deserve it. He leads American League hitters in WAR, according to Baseball-Reference. He leads AL hitters in WAR, according to FanGraphs. If you’re telling me that I need to appreciate Altuve more, I take offense to that. I’ve been on this bandwagon for years, and he’s long been one of my favorite players to watch.

But the Angels are a story. They’re three games over .500, and they have a half-game lead in the second wild-card race. You all laughed at me when I called the Angels sneaky almost-maybe contenders before the season, just like you laughed at me when I said that Nelson Cruz was a horrible idea for the Mariners, but forget that last part. The Angels are relevant, and they just might make the postseason.

With a 74-48 record, the Nationals sit 14 games ahead of the Miami Marlins for the lead in the NL East and seem locked into the second spot in the National League as the Los Angeles Dodgers run away with the top spot.

Washington avoided disaster when Bryce Harper’s scary knee injury was revealed to be a bone bruise instead of something season-ending, but the team will still be without his services in August. The Nationals are 5-3 in their eight games since the injury.

Roark has been better for the Nationals on the road this season than he has been at home. Washington is 5-2 in Roark’s last seven road starts, compared to a 1-5 record in his last six at home, per the OddsShark MLB Database.

The Astros still have the best record in the American League at 76-48, but most of the heavy lifting on that record was done before the All-Star break. Over the second half, Houston is just 16-19, including a 7-12 run so far in the month of August.

I get fired up when I see a great block. It’s the lineman blood running through me. Now y’all get to join in that excitement. The Most Disrespectful Block (or Blocks!) of the Week is here.

The Most Disrespectful Block of the Week is a weekly series that will run at SB Nation throughout the NFL season.Kids Jordan Berry Jersey
The first question, the reporter stated the question as addressing ‘the elephant in the room’, to which Marshawn answered as only Marshawn can.

I think that elephant just left the room cuz a little mouse ran in, Lynch responded. Don’t they say elephants are scared of mouses or something? The muhfucka left, cousin.Kids Reggie Nelson Jersey
Davis is 34 years old, but his play hasn’t declined. Davis was selected in the first round of the 2005 draft by the Panthers, and with the exception of a couple of seasons that were marred by injury, has been a consistent and forceful presence on the field for Carolina. He led the team in tackles last season with 106, and he added 2.5 sacks, a forced fumble, and three interceptions.

He also played every single defensive snap in the team’s last 11 games of the season. Davis finished the year with 1,009 snaps, which was the team’s high mark.

Davis’ age and the investment the team made into Shaq Thompson, Carolina’s first-round pick in 2015, raised some questions about a possible extension for Davis. New defensive coordinator Steve Wilks said Thompson will be a bigger part of the defensive rotation this season to give Davis an opportunity to rest.

With Thomas Davis getting up there in age and years, we’ve got to cut down on his reps, Wilks said via the team’s website. So there will be times where Shaq is going to be in, and we’re going to try to relieve Thomas to give him some rest.

Davis said he understood that the negotiation process takes time, and that there was no need to rush since he was still under contract through the 2017 season.

Youth Jo-Lonn Dunbar Jersey On the other hand, they’re just 4 1/2 out of the second wild card, and while Cliff Lee returned to the Phillies and Aroldis Chapman returned to the Yankees after deadline deals, the vast majority of players traded don’t return. And the Rangers might have a template for the next couple of seasons that absolutely involves Darvish. Instead of Lee/Chapman, the Rangers might be thinking more like the Giants with Hunter Pence in 2013, preferring the extra months of negotiation to whatever prospects they could have received.Limited Mens Johnny Bucyk Jersey
A really good pitcher to slot somewhere around Jon Lester, Jose Quintana, Jake Arrieta, and Kyle Hendricks or John Lackey. It would be hard to call that quintet fearsome until Arrieta figures out what’s wrong, or until Lester gets his ERA under 4.00, or until Hendricks comes off the DL, but it’s not not fearsome. It sure is a collection of well-known names. Lester/Darvish/Quintana wouldn’t be the first group of pitchers I’d ask to face in the postseason.

Despite the influx of fresh faces, plenty of the old guard will be on display in Los Angeles.

With less than 72 hours left until the MLB trade deadline, the rumors have slowed down ever so slightly. It’s the calm before the trade storm, theoretically, and while things have settled into a pattern of the same players being connected to the same handful of teams the bulk of potential trades haven’t gone down yet.

With only a weekend before the deadline, here are all of the latest trade rumors to keep track of as things hurtle towards the finish line.

The Rangers have now publicly made Yu Darvish available and admitted they will trade him, but now details about what Darvish’s price will be are coming to the surface. Reports say that Texas wants a lot in return for their ace, so it will come down to whichever team is okay with giving a ton up for a rental.Elite Youth Andrew Ladd Jersey
It’s too early to get excited about any tiebreaker possibilities, but we can still think about how fun it will be to consider tiebreaker possibilities late next month. We’ve got three teams vying for one playoff spot right now. Two other teams are only 1.5 games back. The Angels are two back, and managed to stick that close despite being without Mike Trout for weeks — and he’s back now. We won’t get a six-way tie for one wild card or anything, but the more teams who are close to a tie now, the greater the chances of having at least one tie to deal with come Oct. 2.Elite Youth Serge Ibaka Jersey
Imagine: Oct. 1, everyone plays at 3 p.m. ET, we finish with a tie, and we know there’s at least one Game 163 on Monday and a Wild Card Game on Tuesday. That’s a gauntlet both for the teams and the fans, and we are ready for it.

So, don’t get too excited that the Royals, Rays, and Mariners are all tied up for one playoff spot, with another three teams right there behind them. You can start to at least entertain the possibility we’ll get a tiebreaker scenario out of this mess, though. Come on, MLB, we deserve this kind of chaos.

The former Buccaneers kicker has been claimed off waivers by the Bears, ESPN reported, citing a source.

The waiver claim comes just one day after Aguayo was released by Tampa Bay after an abysmal preseason game against the Bengals Friday night.

“I want to be able to use this platform to continuously push the message … of how unselfish you can be as a society,” Bennett said after the Seahawks’ 48-17 win. “How we can continuously love one another and understand that people are different; and just because they’re different, it doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t like them. Because they don’t smell the way you smell and they don’t eat what you eat, because they don’t pray to the same god that you pray to, doesn’t mean that you should hate them. Whether it’s Muslim or Buddhists or Christianity, whatever it is, I just want people to understand that no matter what we’re in this thing together. It’s more about being a human being at this point.”

The Seahawks were not aware that Bennett was going to sit, according to Trotter. In fact, coach Pete Carroll didn’t even realize he did it until after the game. One Seahawks official said he was okay with Bennett’s stance, “as long as Michael is preaching love and not hate.”

Meanwhile, Marshawn Lynch, Bennett’s former Seahawks teammate who now plays for the Raiders, sat on Oakland’s bench while eating a banana during the national anthem before Oakland’s game at Arizona on Saturday.

Raiders coach Jack Del Rio said Lynch told him he’s been sitting during the national anthem for 11 years, but Yahoo! Sports reported Lynch’s assertion “doesn’t appear to be accurate.” There are photos of Lynch standing for the anthem during his career, and sources don’t recall Lynch ever sitting for it during his time with the Seahawks and Bills.

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Unanimous? No, but he’d get some votes. I think he’d be up there with Blue Jays first baseman Justin Smoak as most improved player.

Michael Thomas Authentic Jersey Schoop has, in fact, improved throughout his career, injuries in 2014 aside. He posted a 2.1 WAR in 2016 and is well on his way to doubling that mark this season (3.9 bWAR through 108 games). He has improved as a defensive second baseman the past couple years (0 defensive runs saved vs. minus-3 in 2015).

Still, it might have to be Smoak here: He’s putting together a 3.4 WAR season (his career high is 1.3) and he had his first All-Star appearance at age 30.

Both guys are deserving, I think, which means it isn’t unanimous for one or the other.

It seems like oblique strains are on the rise in the MLB. Any idea why?

This year has been all about the rookies, as 21-year-old Cody Bellinger hit his 30th home run this week, and the Yankees’ Aaron Judge is the front runner in the American League MVP race.

Albies and Devers are the youngest of the young but far from overwhelmed. The future is bright for both players but possibly even brighter for MLB.

Paul Goldschmidt is good. Everyone knows this. But Thursday, he was even better than normal, as he went 3-for-4 with three home runs and six RBIs in a 10-8 Diamondbacks win over the Cubs. And crazier than that, in a game that featured three rain delays, he hit a home run after each one. That’s not a stat many batters have achieved.

We’re placing players in peril when they have no notice or familiarity with the surface they’re playing on, he said. There may be a better solution where you have a base that has a less slick surface in response to precipitation.

Boras said he was in the stands at the Chicago Cubs-Arizona Diamondbacks game Saturday when he saw the video replay of Harper’s injury on his phone. He left the stadium and was later kept apprised of Harper’s status by another one of his clients, Washington outfielder Jayson Werth.